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La Serena is My New Favourite Chilean City

I’m glad I took a chance on La Serena—it paid off.

You never know, with coastal cities. Sometimes, the beach locals rave about is small and dirty, sometimes you end up in a tiny, overpriced town along with hordes of tourists, and sometimes port cities are run down and dodgy.

But La Serena is lovely.

I didn’t have a map, so after dropping off my backpack in the spare bedroom, I headed straight to what looked like the main avenue, Francisco de Aguirre. There were two signs: “Plaza de Armas,” straight, and “Playa,” left.

And that’s basically all you need to know about La Serena.

Much like in Santiago—and probably in other Chilean cities—, Plaza de Armas is the main square in the old town. The narrow streets with brightly painted houses and plenty of churches reminded me of Mexico or Guatemala. Many buildings are built with wood from Oregon, brought to Chile as a counterweight in vessels sailing to the nearby port of Coquimbo to load copper and other minerals for transport back to the US, and you can see the scars left by the last earthquake. Life is slow-paced in this part of La Serena, it feels like a small town—yes, waiting half an hour for a churrasca is normal, what’s the hurry?

But then, when you actually need a proper supermarket because the old ladies at the almacén are lovely, but they ran out of coffee twenty years ago and never reordered it, there are two large shopping malls just down Francisco de Aguirre. That’s where the tattooed-and-pierced youth of La Serena hangs out at well, at least until sunset—then, it’s time to go grab a hand roll (basically a long sushi roll, usually deep-fried and filled with cream cheese, crab stick and avocado) and practice K-Pop dance moves in public parks.

All the way down Francisco de Aguirre, there’s the Faro Monumental de La Serena, which is indeed unmissable and quite tall. That’s where the 11-kilometre-long beach starts, and it stretches all the way to Coquimbo, the port city.

I was relieved to see it was a nice beach, with good sand, great waves and giant Pacific Ocean shells washed up on the shore. I stood there for a few minutes, feet in the water, pretty amazed that we started on the Atlantic Ocean side, in Brazil, just a few weeks ago, and that I was there, on the Pacific side, in Chile.

And then, like everyone else, I walked back and forth on Avenida del Mar, along the beach.

I think I’m gonna like it here, I like multifaceted cities.

Francisco de Aguirre, La Serena
Faro Monumental, La Serena
Faro Monumental, La Serena
Faro Monumental, La Serena
Faro Monumental, La Serena
Playa El Faro, La Serena
Playa El Faro, La Serena
Playa El Faro, La Serena
Playa El Faro, La Serena
Playa El Faro, La Serena
Playa El Faro, La Serena
PLaya La Marina, La Serena
PLaya La Marina, La Serena
Playa Blanca, La Serena
Playa Blanca, La Serena
Playa Blanca, La Serena
Playa Blanca, La Serena
Playa Blanca, La Serena
Playa El Pescador, La Serena
Playa El Pescador, La Serena
Playa El Corsario, La Serena
Avenida del Mar, La Serena
Amunátegui Pte, La Serena
Amunátegui Pte, La Serena
Amunátegui Pte, La Serena
Amunátegui Pte, La Serena
Panamericana Norte, Ruta 5 through La Serena
Former railway station, La Serena
Cabañas Amankay, La Serena
Estadio La Portada, La Serena
Amunátegui, Ruta 41, La Serena
Andrés Bello, La Serena
Andrés Bello, La Serena
Scars from the last earthquake, Andrés Bello, La Serena
Scars from the last earthquake, Andrés Bello, La Serena
Juan de Dios Peni, La Serena
Downtown La Serena
Francisco de Aguirre, La Serena
Francisco de Aguirre, La Serena
Avenida Estadio, La Serena
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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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